Chuckk

I was reading the '94 Cannondale catalog and stumbled across the Coda Magic crankset. I'd never heard of it before, but it had external bearings, splined crank, and was "hollow tech" LONG before modern cranks.

Did it have problems, or just get thrown away in the bankruptcy?




Page 42 here:
https://sanaandterry.com/cannondale/year/1994/1994.pdf

ftwelder

I remember Alex Pong and the magic projects. The guy vanished pretty suddenly.

Chuckk

That sent me searching for Alex Pong

1994 Article

and his bike design for Cannondale:


More photos of the Magic bike
https://vintagecannondale.com/odd/mag...dalemagic.html

Found Alex's list of patents:
https://www.patentgenius.com/invented...LangleyWA.html

T-Mar

Shimano had splined spindle cranksets as early as 1979. It was called Octa Joint and used on the Altus/Selecta cassette cranks.

Cynikal 

Looking at that now I'm amazed by how much of that design has carried forward to their SI crank design. Clearly this was a step forward in crank design.

rhm

Williams introduced their AB77 cotterless crankset, with splined spindle, in 1962.

LWaB

Lots of stress-raisers in those designs.

WNG

Please explain...which designs are you referring to?

Henry III

I don't think it was so much just the splined spindle but the external bearing bb also but almost 17 years ago.

Rocket-Sauce 

Cannondale bought the design -and Alex Pong along with it- from Magic Motorcycle.
https://mombat.org/Magic_Motorcycle.htm

bradtx

ChuckK, I remember when these cranksets first hit the streets. Those techies in the club that had them, loved them. I thought they were too ugly for any benefit they offered. They did seem to quietly fade away now that I think about it... recall issue?

Brad

Rocket-Sauce 

^^Canondale evolved it into their Hollowgram BB30 cranks.
https://www.cannondale.com/none/none/hollowgramSL

LWaB

Cannondale Coda cranks tended to fail. The recall was for failed glue joints but there were a lot failures due to cracking.

adr5

I owned two sets of these cranks. The first was a Magic Motorcycle and the other was a CODA 900. Unfortunately both sets of cranks failed on me. The Magic Motorcycles broke one of the spider arms. I kept hearing a creaking sound and when I did a closer inspection I found one of the arms cracked all the way through. The CODAs failed in a different way that could have been nasty. They worked find and had not noise. One day while cleaning the bike I wiped the cranks and some dirt was not coming off. I took a closer look and found that the line of dirt was actually a crack in the crank arm. It had one all the way across half the arm. No more funky cranks for me after that. I stick to good old shimano. I should have the crank arm pieces somewhere at home. I know I still have at least one, if not two, of the one piece chainring sets.

There were some nice features of the crank. The multi lobed tapered press fit hollow oversized aluminum bottom bracket still lives in the Cannondale line. The self extracting/installing crank bolts were a clever idea that I am surprised no one else is using. The oversized outboard bearings are not pretty much standard throughout the industry.

bobbycorno

Nice design for sure, but hardly original to Mr Pong. Similar design from Bullseye in the '70's (IIRC):



...and I'd be surprised if Roger Durham "invented" the design. There were probably similar cranks 100 years ago.

SP
Bend, OR

Chombi

So, Did he ever finish hollowing out that MTB bike for Cannondale? I'm not surprised that other designers were skeptical about him achieving his weight goals on it as he would have to hollow out pretty much every piece on that frame and suspension at ginormous costs just in labor and time never mind all the billet aluminum material they have to go through to get even near the 20 some pound weight target. In the end, a CF monocoque design can do what he wanted to much easier and less costly. I think he was just obsessed with working with CNC'd Al and technology eventually overtook his designs. The cracking Wonder cranks might have also put much doubt in Cannondale's head how good/valid the "Engineering" is on his designs so he was eventually "phased out" of their future product planning, specially when the Wonder crank verture started eating up their profits. If anything, maybe Cannondale could have helped him a bit with their own internal engineering resources.

Chombi

andyJC

My first set of these cranks arrived on a new F2000 in 1995. They are still in use today, on probably the fifth or sixth set of chainrings on my latest xc bike. The arms are beat up but keep on going, absolutely no cracking or failing in 16 years.

My second set is currently on my triathlon bike. I bought that set in 1997.

These cranks were beyond bleeding edge technology and are still competitive with current offerings. A faulty batch that left the factory have tainted the name of a fantastic product. They certainly did not "tend to fail" as others have said. The big drawback was cost, I wouldn't have either of my sets if I hadn't been working at a shop at the time.

Dilberto

As much as I still respect Cannondale CODA and their efforts - I cannot get myself to use anything Alex Pong designed... stay reclusive, Alex!

ddeand 

Pretty old thread! This one is still going strong today!

adr5

[QUOTE=ddeand;21499986]Pretty old thread! This one is still going strong today!

I had/have the matching purple chainrings for that crank. Age doesn't really mean much. How many miles on those cranks? My set of those cranks, they were silver no purple, cracked. One of the two skinny arms that hold the chainring cracked all the way around.

adr5

The bullseye cranks are actually much different. Bullseye uses tubular steel that is welded together. The MM cranks were two clamshell halfs that were glued and screwed together. The clever part is that screwed parts were the crank bolts and the pedals. The external bearings are similar. I also doubt the bullseye cranks were anywhere near as light as the MM cranks.

Londonsworld 

These cranks have been put through hell and no cracks.

VtwinVince

I have an early set of MM cranks on my stationary bike, and they are pretty interesting units.